Crisp Apples on a Cold Fall Day
by Moldy Milk
Summary: Nuke has been apprenticing under Yoku for a couple of months. After a training session Nuke finds out that Yoku may have different feelings than he thought. FFCC: Echoes of Time, my Guild characters. BL/Shonen-ai, language, and sexual themes.


**Nuke, Yoku, Yuki and Kitsu are actual charcters I have in my FFCC: Echoes of Time game on DS, and, may I just say that, they are fucking awesome! I hope you enjoy this, thanks for checking it out! ^m^**

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Iron cut swiftly through the air in one swoop, cutting the Mu in half, it's fur now free to take. The blue haired teenager grinned and picked it up, putting it into one of his pockets and turning to me.

"Looks like you're gettin' better, kid." I said.

"My name isn't kid, it's Nuke!" he pouted. "Anyways, you're only…" he counted, "Three years older than me!"

"Sorry, bad habit." and it really was. I had trained a thirteen year old a while back and always called him kid, because, well, he was one. But Nuke was sixteen, way too old to still be called a child. "So, you gon' kill that other one over there or just let it be?"

"Hunh? Oh! I didn't see that one, thanks!" he jumped off the small ledge and ran down the slope, bringing down his iron sword with a shout of _see ya! _and killing yet another Mu.

Nuke was a young Selkie who was very ambitious and came to me begging to let him be my apprentice. He had traded the usual bow of his race for an iron sword of mine and after he had proven to me through several missions I took him under my wing and began to train him.

I am a Clavat, the most appraised race. I was raised in Town until the age of fourteen. At said age I ran away to the Aqueducts and trained myself with the creatures down there, sometimes not eating for five days and losing much sleep. But it made me strong and experienced in fighting. Once I felt satisfied I left and, after buying a map from an old peddler who was making his way to Town, went to Village.

When I arrived there an elderly female Yuke took me in and let me stay with her until I could get my own hut. I asked her what year it was and realized I had been down in the Aqueducts for roughly three years and was around seventeen now.

I was now nineteen.

"Hey, can I take a break?" Nuke asked. "I'm exhausted, I didn't get barely any sleep last night!"

"I don't know, can you?" I smirked. Hey, I grew up with a Grammar Nazi.

"Fine, fine. May I, Captain Grammar?"

"Yes, you may."

He rolled his eyes and walked down to the deep part of the river that didn't have a current and I followed. Once he got to the edge he undid the belt around his middle. Next came the long blue over shirt (and the fur bottom, amazingly, didn't get dirty when it hit the ground) followed by the pale yellow button-down sleeveless undershirt. He kicked off the shoes that were particular to his race, and then came his pants. He undid his belt and then, almost slowly, the buttons on the front of the brown capris. Underneath were dark boxers that relieved me from seeing something I most likely was not meant to.

With a whoop of delight he did a cannonball into the water. "Hey, aren't you gonna join me?"

"No, I never really enjoyed swimming." I answered as I tried to regain my composure after what could only be called a "strip tease" and sat at the bank of where he was swimming.

"Oh, c'mon, please?" he begged, pouting.

"I don't know how to make it more obvious to you that I'm not coming in, I don't like swimming!"

Suddenly his pout turned into a smirk and a plan flashed behind his eyes. He swam over to me and motioned for me to lean down closer to him. Being the imbecile I am, I sloped over until I was eye-to-eye with him and my elbows rested against my knees. He looked at me for a moment before his wet arms wrapped around my shoulders and his face was so close I could feel his breath on my lips.

I could feel the blush connecting to my cheeks, I could feel his lips close to touching mine, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and then I could feel…

Cold water all around me and in my lungs. I broke to air and coughed it all up, trying to take deep breaths of air at the same time. I looked over at him and saw that he was laughing hysterically.

"Sorry, Yoku, you're not my type of guy." he giggled.

"Oh, and what is your type of guy?" I asked coldly.

"Hm… well I really like that Yuki, but he seems pretty interesting in Kitsu, so I guess I'm left with you, hunh?"

"Shut up. I'm not gay, anyway." I mumbled. Although it was a complete lie. I'm straight as a circle… hmm, I wonder where I got that from?

"You're not?" he asked, obvious surprise on his face and something else underneath, I just couldn't tell what it was.

"No. Why, are you?"

"Hell yeah!" he made a fist and pumped it up towards the sky whilst giggling some more. "I'm straight as a circle!" oh. That's where.

"Ugh, look, now I'm all wet." I made a disgusted face and looked downwards, the lower half of my body was distorted by the water, just a mess of colors. It was quite relaxing, actually. I would have stared at it all day if he hadn't interrupted my musings.

"Well you should take them off and let them dry then." he said.

"Sure… I mean…" I finally snapped out of my trance and looked up at the grinning boy, what he said registering. "Wh-what? What?"

"You heard me. Take them off and let them dry, that way when you get out you won't get a cold."

"Oh… okay."

I knew I was blushing again as I exited the water and began to strip of my clothes. When I was down to my boxers I slipped back into the water and glared over at Nuke.

"What?" he asked, his red eyes wide and blinking.

I sighed, "Nothing."

We stayed in silence, the only sounds were Nuke going around in circles and going under repeatedly. After a while he looked over at me with a strange look in his eye, one that said_ I really like you_ in a discreet sense. I, secretly, liked him, too. It's not like I never thought of it, us being together, what it would be like to kiss him, to hold him, to-

I thought of these things on occasion. "On occasion" meaning "every single second of the day." Yes, I thought about "us" quite often, but I had never mad a move. I was the person he was apprenticing under, he trusted me! If I tried to have a relationship I would be involved emotionally, and he couldn't learn that way! But still, but still…

_Aw, fuck it. _I thought as I swam close to him. I placed my arms around his waist and pulled him close, the feeling of his skin against mine as our chests touched sending sparks through my body. He blushed and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could I hissed out a short "shh, I just wanna try something" and pressed my lips to his.

It wasn't like all the time's I had imagined it. It was clumsy and sloppy and a bit toothy at first. But it wasn't worse. It was better, so much better! And as the kiss progressed it turned passionate and air-deprived and more intimate as, somehow, without me realizing, my tongue was in his mouth and his in mine. He tasted like crisp apples on a chilly fall day and a hint of chocolate and cherries.

When we couldn't stand it any longer we parted, both panting hard and with flushed faces we looked at each other. Sometime during the kiss his arms has slinked around my shoulders and one of his legs had intertwined with mine. He stared at me for a few minutes before bursting into a fit of giggles.

"So, you're not gay, hunh?" he asked, a wide grin on his kiss-bruised lips.

I glowered at him for a moment before letting out a quiet chuckle and smiling. "Yeah, I'm gay, you got me!"

"Oh? And how long has Mr. I'm-not-gay been gay?"

"Uh…" I had to think on this one. Many people would come down to the Aqueducts for their own reasons and I would always just either let them go about their business if I didn't think it was bad or drive them out, but one time a handsome boy, about my age, came down. I watched him unnoticed the first time, but the second time he came down he saw me. The third time we talked, he stayed for a day or two. The fourth time was the first time I had ever kissed a boy. I had known then.

"Since I was about fifteen, I think." I said with a blush.

"Well," he gave a small smile, his eyes a soft deep red. "I'm glad you're gay, I have a chance with you now… right?"

"Y-yeah, you do… and I like you, so…" I looked up at him, "Can I kiss you again?"

Instead of answering he just grinned and smashed our lips together once more, this time it was less clumsy, less sloppy, less toothy. It was perfect.

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**Here you go! What did you think? Did you like it? Were there any grammatical/spelling errors I need to fix? Please tell me, it would help a lot! I got the inspiration for this while playing it earlier ^o^**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! Please review!**

**Edit: Thank you so much to Seoul Gamer for leaving an amazing review that helped me out tons with this story! It has been moderately edited and much better now, so thanks!  
**

**~Near the MarshMell0**


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